Fee-Taking, Salary Reform, and the Structure of State Power in Late Qing China, 1909-1911

The inadequacy of salaries for government officials was one of the defining characteristics of the bureaucratic system of late imperial times. Because salaries failed to cover the real costs of obtaining and holding office, officials, as a matter of course, resorted to collecting fees (guifei or lougui) from their subordinates or the people in their jurisdictions. Such fees were not prescribed in legal statutes and thus were not incorporated into the accounting procedures of the central state. Accordingly, fees constituted an informal sector of state finance that was beyond the control of the central government's financial organs. On occasions when the central state sought to strengthen its control over public finance, it was natural for fee-taking and the system of bureaucratic salaries to become the target of reform efforts. This article examines fee-taking and salary reform in the context of the Qing dynasty's financial centralization efforts between 1909 and 1911. Because salary reform was a key component of this financial centralization process, a study of salary reform can help us understand the nature of the late Qing financial reforms and their results. At the same time, an examination of fee-taking and salary reform will reveal some fundamental characteristics of the late imperial state on the eve of its demise, and will show why it posed such great obstacles to the creation of a modem, centralized state.